


Honeytrap

by rain_sleet_snow



Series: And We Got All The Fun We Need [3]
Category: Primeval
Genre: Biphobia, F/F, Implied/Referenced Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-11
Updated: 2015-01-11
Packaged: 2018-03-07 03:59:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3160364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Caroline Steel fixed her relationship, cured her jealousy, and took Oliver Leek for all he was worth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Honeytrap

            Caroline sometimes wondered what secret Lorraine was so busy keeping. There seemed nothing extraordinary about Lorraine’s work, except that she never talked about it in specifics; Caroline knew she was a P.A., that she had an irritable boss and long hours, and that she didn’t like to talk about it. Caroline joked that Lorraine was a super-secret spy, bound by the conventions of the Official Secrets Act from ever telling anything to anyone.

 

            Lorraine didn’t laugh, and Caroline continued to wonder.

 

            They were the odd couple out, in a way. People rarely took them for relations but often seemed to think they were friends rather than girlfriends, so Caroline was handsy in public, held hands and touched the small of Lorraine’s back and kissed her cheek and smiled at her in a way that no-one could misinterpret. Usually that led to random men buying them drinks. Caroline wouldn’t have had a problem with that if she didn’t know that that meant those men thought Caroline and Lorraine were playing games. Caroline might be a flirt who dressed like a skank, at least according to the girls at work (and she was pretty sure they were all jealous bitches) but she only played games with one person, and that was Lorraine.

 

            But sometimes, Caroline wondered. About Lorraine’s secret, yes, about whatever it was that was so vital it had Lorraine getting out of Caroline’s bed and going to work when by rights she should have been desperate to stay, but also about them. Lorraine was four years older than she was, quiet and modest and everything Caroline had never wanted to be. They’d met in a bar, at some stupid LGBT night when Caroline was busy cursing out some bunch of lesbians for the way they talked about bisexuals, for the way they talked about _her_ , and Lorraine had appeared behind her left shoulder and asked shyly if she could buy her a drink. Lorraine liked books and Shakespeare. She didn’t like to show off her looks and she wasn’t very sporty. Some days, when they weren’t watching ancient black and white movies together or being drawn into hours-long, intense discussions about politics and feminism and gay rights and other things Caroline would never have admitted she had an opinion on to anyone else, Caroline wondered what made them work. She wondered if anything made them work at all.

 

            Because at the same time as being nothing like Caroline’s vision of her future, Lorraine was everything Caroline wanted to be. She was trusted and clever and competent, with a bright future in whatever her chosen career was, and people told her things. They didn’t treat her like they treated Caroline, like a beautiful, disposable doll with no brains. Like Caroline, they just trusted her, straight off the bat, and told her everything. Metaphorically speaking, they dropped their argument with the lesbians and went and drank Irish coffees and talked about social erasure and trivialisation of bisexuality. Caroline envied Lorraine her important secrets, her trustworthiness, and the way other people seemed to value her; Caroline had never had anything like that at home, or in her circle of friends, or even at her stupid entry-level cubicle-monkey position at the law firm. Caroline was jealous, and wasn’t that a departure for someone more used to inspiring jealousy than feeling it.

 

            It didn’t help that Lorraine was so reserved. Searching for a sign that someone valued her, searching for a reason not to push back at Lorraine and punish her for Caroline’s jealousy, Caroline found so _little_. Other people were obvious. Other people said they loved her and told her how beautiful she was, showered her with compliments and presents just because they could. All Lorraine gave her to show she cared was respect and a genuine interest in her thoughts and feelings, and as much as it was a relief for Caroline to finally get that from _somewhere_ , it was only as much as Lorraine would have given to anyone. The sex had always been pretty great, which was good, because it had always been a primary concern for Caroline and Caroline wouldn’t have wanted to develop feelings for someone who was useless between the sheets. Caroline got the impression that Lorraine had always been the considerate one before and hadn’t got much out of it, but Caroline could fix that – and was surprised to find that she wanted to.

 

           Then again, a lot of things surprised her about the way she liked Lorraine. Caroline was worryingly close to committing to her, which was something she’d never actually done before, and despite her lack of experience she was pretty certain you shouldn’t commit to someone you envied. She was also fairly sure that Lorraine’s family had dark suspicions about her - when she first met Lorraine’s niece, she thought the kid was going to bite her – and after a whole year, she knew that Lorraine’s family were the most important thing in the world to her. Definitely a more important thing than Caroline.

 

            But there was no way she could tell Lorraine any of this; Lorraine wouldn’t understand, she was much too nice a person, she didn’t think in twists and turns and plots the way Caroline did even if all she had to plot over was office politics, and the last thing Caroline wanted was to hurt her. So Caroline kept quiet and kissed and loved and provoked full-length debates in public and flipped off people who yelled rude things about dykes so Lorraine wouldn’t have to, and let her envy stew in secrecy until it metastasised into boredom. Boredom with her job, boredom with sweet bland Lorraine, boredom with all the fucking _secrets_. Sometimes Caroline thought it would be easier if she could just have a proper row about it, get it all out, but whatever Lorraine’s secrets were, Caroline was as sure as hell that Lorraine wouldn’t tell them for the sake of shouting.

 

            She started going out on her own when Lorraine was busy at work, partly to stop herself feeling bereft when Lorraine had to run off and work and partly to show Lorraine she was a free agent. “I _always_ come back to you,” Caroline promised when she went back to Lorraine smelling of cigarettes she didn’t smoke and beer she didn’t drink. “I would _never_ , Lorraine. I just wanted a bit of fun, a night out, you know? Don’t you trust me?”

 

            Caroline knew that was cruel but she said it anyway, and Lorraine’s huge brown eyes filled with all these painful things Caroline didn’t want to think about, and Lorraine nodded and kissed Caroline and let it go.

 

            Caroline had always known she could get away with anything, if she tried hard enough.

 

            The evenings out on her own weren’t as fun as they could have been. Caroline sometimes went out with friends who were more like acquaintances and drank a bit too much, in order to wipe out the pain she was inflicting on someone she...

 

            On Lorraine.

 

            She flirted with people, just because she could. Men, women, it didn’t matter, Caroline reeled them in and then left them hanging at the end of the night because the fact that she acted that way didn’t mean she had to be serious and no matter what she was doing, she still wanted to go back to Lorraine’s place, let herself in with the spare key and crawl into bed with her. That led to a couple of nasty incidents. Caroline maintained that pepper-spray was God’s gift to womankind.

 

            And lately there’d been a sleazy businessman hanging round in the same bar she liked best, someone who watched her with a weirdly clinical interest. He saw her get rid of someone... overenthusiastic once. She worried he was going to call the police, but he didn’t.

 

            One evening he came up to her, and she stared at him, warily. “I buy my own drinks,” she said pre-emptively, even though it usually wasn’t true.

 

            He raised an eyebrow. “And I bet you test them to see if they’ve been spiked. Listen, I’m not after anything... sexual. I saw you deal with that boy. It was very impressive. Charm and ruthlessness have always been a winning combination.”

 

            “Not one you possess,” she said sharply, not liking where this was going.

 

            He gave her a thin smile. “Honesty is also valued,” he assured her, in a way that made her think that it probably wasn’t. He passed her a business card with nothing more than a telephone number on it. “I have a job for someone with that particular combination of talents. Nothing dangerous or illegal, but a little clandestine, and, of course, well-paid. How do you feel about serving your country, Miss Steel?”

 

            The sensible thing to do would have been to give him back his piece of card, get up and walk away. The stupid thing to do would have been to demand how he knew her name. Caroline decided to remain true to herself, looked from the card to him, and said: “So I suppose I call you M?”

 

            He gave her that thin smile again. “I prefer Oliver. Don’t give me a decision yet; you have two days to think about it. You can’t tell anyone, naturally; secrecy is of the utmost importance.” He bit off the syllables of ‘utmost’, as if snapping it in half with his teeth. Caroline looked back at the card, and considered tucking it into her bra for safe-keeping; then she realised that Oliver would probably like that a lot too much, and put it away in her pocket instead.

 

            She went straight back to Lorraine, determined to spill the beans and see what the secret-keeper thought, but Lorraine was awake, standing in her kitchen with deep dark circles under her eyes, exhaustion in the lines of her body and a mug of coffee in her hands, and it didn’t seem like the moment. Caroline felt a pang of guilt, and realised that she hadn’t even spoken to Lorraine for two whole days. She kissed her, took her coffee away, and persuaded her out of her clothes and into the shower, and then into bed. Lorraine fell asleep so quickly, child-like in her weariness, and Caroline didn’t have the heart to leave her and go home. She was starting to think she had too much heart all around; certainly too much for the mysterious Mr. Oliver’s job offer.

 

            She snuggled down beside Lorraine and closed her eyes, and in the morning when she woke up, she sat Lorraine down and made her breakfast, then told her all about Mr. Oliver.

 

            Lorraine heard her out silently, her face blank. “Can I see the card?” she asked when Caroline had finished, and Caroline handed it over. Lorraine compared the number on it with one on her phone, and nodded, her lips going tight. She handed the card back.

 

            “What do you think I should do?” Caroline asked. “I mean... this is your area, isn’t it?”

 

            Lorraine looked at her for a long moment, and then grinned. “Closer than you know.”

 

            “So?” Caroline prompted.

 

            Lorraine glanced at the card between Caroline’s fingers. “If you want to be safe, don’t call that number and give me the piece of card, and I can make it so you never see it or Mr. Oliver again.”

 

            “What if I’d rather be in danger?” Caroline asked, and a long, slow smile made its way across Lorraine’s face, which was probably the hottest thing Caroline had ever seen.

 

            Lorraine selected a different number in her phone-directory. “Let me make a call.”

 

 

            The meeting with the disdainful man Lorraine called ‘sir’ was long, a bit frightening, and made Caroline want to slap him for the way he obviously thought of her. At the end, she found herself agreeing to sign the Official Secrets Act and wear a wire, and signing a waiver that said if she died, it wasn’t the government’s fault. The look on Lorraine’s face suggested that she’d signed a similar one.

 

            Accepting Mr. Oliver’s job offer was a lot easier. Caroline met him in an underground car-park, pepper-spray tucked firmly into her bag, wire concealed in her bra where any metal detector would take it for overzealous underwiring, and told him about dull jobs and petty people and the need for a bit of _excitement_. It wasn’t hard at all to make it sound true, and now, with those waivers and that copy of the Official Secrets Act signed, Caroline wondered if that was a bad thing.

 

            Mr. Oliver wasn’t suspicious, Caroline was sure of that. He took her mobile phone number and promised to send her the details when he had an assignment for her.

 

            Caroline walked home, carefully losing the man Mr. Oliver set to follow her at Victoria Station, and called Lorraine on her landline. “I got the job,” she said.

 

            “Fantastic,” Lorraine replied, not enthusiastic but with a current of warmth running through her words. “Meet up to celebrate?”

 

            “Sure,” Caroline said easily.

 

            “Drinks at mine then dinner?”

 

            “Absolutely,” Caroline smiled. “Is Saturday good for you?”

 

            “Just fine. See you on Saturday, then.”

 

            Caroline hung up the phone and felt like she’d achieved something.

 

 

            She went to meet Lorraine at her flat on Saturday. Lorraine talked idly about moving, said she wasn’t keen on the neighbours in Clapham (Caroline agreed: the neighbours were homophobic dickheads) and had seen a great flat in Putney, which she’d look at when this was all over.

 

            Maybe, she said, with a shy glance at Caroline, they could look at it together.

 

            Caroline nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “That – I’d like that.”

 

            Lorraine smiled, and looked down at her toes in the heels Caroline had bought her for her last birthday, the ridiculously expensive fire-engine red ones that did stupidly beautiful things to her legs and the way she walked.

 

            “So,” Caroline said. “Tell me about the ARC.”

 

            Lorraine took a deep breath and started talking, about monsters and scientists and dinosaurs – _dinosaurs_! – and mammoths on the M25, about Nick and Helen Cutter and Stephen Hart, sex, lies and betrayal – and about Jenny Lewis and Claudia Brown, one of whom might never have existed.

 

            “Wow,” Caroline said at last. “When this is over I think I might stick to Deloitte.”

 

            “If you wanted to you wouldn’t have to,” Lorraine said, looking into the middle distance. “I know you get... bored. And we could use a legal department. We don’t actually have one. I think Jenny Lewis might love you forever if you turned up and started giving her legal precedents to smother the press with.”

 

            “Yeah, well, she’d be out of luck,” Caroline said, and caught Lorraine’s hand, squeezing it. “Also, when I was talking to Mr. Oliver, most of what I said –“

 

            “-was true,” Lorraine filled in gently. “It was, wasn’t it?”

 

            “...Maybe,” Caroline allowed guiltily. “Maybe a bit. But listen, Lorraine, I would never...” Her phone buzzed, and, feeling harried, she got it out. A picture of a man came onto the screen; someone with soft features, a blankly innocent, young-looking face, and puppyish brown eyes. _Introduce yourself to this man_ , read the accompanying text. _Let him think you’re attracted to him and agree to a date. Report back when this is accomplished and await instructions_. The phone buzzed again, and more of the text arrived, adding the address of a video shop and the time he usually visited.

 

            Caroline looked up, and met Lorraine’s eyes. “Work?” Lorraine asked delicately, a slightly sad look on her face, and Caroline felt a sudden reversal of the usual order. She decided that this was too disconcerting to be allowed to continue, and leaned over the table and kissed Lorraine soundly, leaving traces of shining pink lipgloss on Lorraine’s lips.

 

             “I don’t have to do anything for a bit,” she said, which was true. “Come on or we’ll miss our reservation.”

 

            “You realise we’ll probably be followed and someone will listen to our conversation,” Lorraine pointed out, leaning over for another kiss.

 

            “So?” Caroline asked, obliging her. “We can fool anyone we like. Come on,” she coaxed, running a finger teasingly along the underside of Lorraine’s jaw, and added a sparkle to her eyes and mischief to her smile. Lorraine relaxed, as Caroline knew she would. “ _Showtime_.”

 


End file.
